by Cole Alpaugh
Leaving the highway near a town called Riobe, they turned west toward the sun, climbing in elevation on a pitted dirt road. It had recently rained, making progress slow, as the driver shifted into the lowest gear to ford rushing streams and test the depth of flooded potholes.
Thirty minutes of four-wheeling brought them to the edge of Moreau’s ranch and the first zombie guards. The four bodies were buried to their hips, two on each side, with backs turned to the muddy road. They were naked, emaciated men, with curved spines and leathery skin so black it shone blue. Their arms were posed unnaturally in front of them, and a large hand-painted sign nailed to a post on the left side of the road read, “Y AP MANJE.”
“They are eating,” the driver translated over his shoulder in a hushed tone, possibly not wishing to further disturb the undead. For real? Chase had flashbacks to the haunted hay rides his parents took them to as kids at Halloween time. The campy idea of posing corpses with signs saying they were eating trespassers or lost children was amusing, except that these were real dead bodies, according to the file.
A mile or so farther up the mountain, Moreau’s men jumped out of the Jeep to unlock and push open a swinging gate. They followed the road to the right, along a ridgeline and into the shadows of Montagne Terrible’s lone peak. In a few hundred yards they passed another collection of zombies in more stark and threatening poses. Some were upright, wielding machetes, while others were stretched on the ground with arms forward at the very edge of the road, crawling into passing traffic. These hands might have been crushed by the Jeep’s tires, had the driver not been careful to maneuver just beyond the probing fingertips.
These were dead bodies. Or real zombies.
Most disturbing were the zombies scattered among the remaining dead trees, barely visible. Rotting faces peeked around decaying trunks, watching over the road from a distance.
They bounced along the rutted road in silence until approaching a two story, open-sided concrete building, where a half dozen or so of Moreau’s workers were busy employing their bokor magic.
This was the zombie-making factory.
“Gardyen yo.” The driver pointed to a row of sewn together human remains just outside the structure, probably the finished products, perhaps mismatched by size, color, and sex on purpose. The Jeep stopped a few yards from the wide open building, likely on Moreau’s orders, to give the journalist the full effect of this plantation. Chase gasped. The rancid stench came and went in palpable waves that seemed to be heated contractions in the air.
The driver and his coworker pulled the bottoms of their shirts up over their faces, trying to filter out the smell that apparently no longer fazed the workers inside the factory. This had to be absolute proof a person could get used to the smell of anything.
The smell transported Chase back to his summer at the Daily Times. There was the hanging corpse, and then another body right before Labor Day. A suicidal man had used a short length of rope to suspend a boat anchor from his neck; he had then stepped off the end of a dock into the Wicomico River. After a few weeks of late-summer heat, his body gasses had built up enough so that he was floating upside down in eight feet of water. A gray, comically bloated bare foot—waving gently to and fro under the surface—was eventually spotted by a family from their pontoon boat bow.
Chase had arrived at the river’s edge just as cops used a hook and rope to haul in the body. The dragging hook had pierced the bloated corpse, which excreted a gas one of the officers described as “heated rot.”
This Haitian building was erupting with the same heated rot smell, as bokors busily went about their grim duties. Bodies were stacked high at each end, sandbag-fashion. The upstairs loft held at least fifty more cadavers. The brown, unsteady clumps on open wounds and gashes, Chase realized, were huge clusters of feeding flies.
The jeans-clad men were shirtless, coated in blood and gore from sawing appendages and then reattaching them to other bodies for maximum scarecrow effect. There was an old black man with the arms of a younger white woman; a child with two heads; a small body with four arms instead of any legs. The Mister Potato Head options were endless.
The left side of the building appeared to be for deconstructing the corpses, with a series of five autopsy tables equipped with saws and curved recesses to catch fluids. The middle area comprised four heavier wooden tables stacked high with arms, legs, torsos, and heads. Large white metal buckets sat below these tables, filled with assortments of smaller items, such as noses and ears, feet and hands. Some buckets were just for hair and scalps. These buckets drew by far the most flies.
The right side of the building was where the intricate work of reassembly was performed on a half-dozen surgical tables. A man sat on the gory floor, trying to untangle a mass of what might be fishing line, while others continued sewing above him. The finished zombie guards were lined up just in front of the Jeep, ready for deployment.
“Gardyen yo,” Chase said, repeating what the one escort had called them. Both guards were trying to smoke unfiltered cigarettes through their shirts.
“Guardians,” the other escort said in English. “These are the guards being made.”
“Zonbies,” added the other man, who retched and began coughing and choking on the smoke or the smell. After catching his breath and holding his gorge, he waved for the driver to get going. “Prese prese!” he pleaded through the material of his uniform shirt.
Beyond the barn was a shock of rich deep green, so totally out of place as to seem even more unreal than the zombie factory in the foreground. Healthy young marijuana plants stood knee high, like early Kansas corn, in a field that stretched out in a carpet down the mountain, disappearing from view. This had to be Moreau’s summer crop.
The driver shifted the Jeep into gear and they slowly headed into the middle of a complex of low concrete and tin buildings. The main house was the largest, painted yellow with grated steel vents instead of windows. The style was a combination of Haitian and Spanish, with a low-pitched roof, stucco siding, and an archway over the front door. Missing were palm trees, or any live trees for that matter. The few living, low-growing tropical plants anywhere in the dusty shade of this part of the mountain needed water or just to be mowed down and put out of their misery.
Chase grabbed his backpack and jumped down from the Jeep just as Moreau burst through the front door to greet them. Chase watched closely as the driver left the keys in the ignition and climbed out, shouldering an old twenty-two caliber rifle that had been stashed between his seat and door.
“Welcome, welcome, my friend!” The squat, bulldog of a man charged forward, hand open for a lusty grasp. His accent was unidentifiable—not French, not Creole and not exactly American. Moreau proudly sported the pot belly of a successful Haitian man. His hands were strangely dainty and his head was roughly the size, color, and shape of a twelve-pound Brunswick bowling ball—only with the holes arranged differently.
His two men disappeared into the house, as Moreau embraced Chase and asked his first impression.
“I’ll be honest and say there’s no place else on Earth just like this.”
Moreau laughed knowingly as he led them up the red brick path to his front door.
“This is a labor of love, my new friend. That God has blessed our soil to raise such beautiful and productive crops is validation of the vital importance of our pursuits.”
Chase thought the shiploads of bat guano sure seemed to be helping the soil, too.
The floors of Moreau’s home were polished tan tile, and each hallway and all visible rooms were crowned with the same Spanish-style archways. Somewhere, a generator droned on, taxed by the enormous, ancient window-model air-conditioning unit that valiantly attempted to do its job, despite there being no glass on the windows to trap the cool air.
Moreau gestured for Chase to sit across from him in the great room, while the passenger seat chaperone from the Jeep appeared, lugging a tripod, a bright orange extension cord, and a hard plastic video cam
era case. He set up the older model VHS camcorder to record over Chase’s shoulder, behind the couch, screwing it onto the tripod and then flipping on the small, intense light. After making a few noisy adjustments, he cursed under his breath in French or Creole and disappeared, apparently in search of a fresh videotape. Moreau sat patiently, lips pursed, legs crossed, hands clasped together with fingers entwined on his bent knee.
“Pardon the wait,” Moreau said. “I’m sure the historians will be interested in a video recording of my rise to power, don’t you agree? A documentary could be of great inspiration to my people. But at this stage in my political career, there is only a small circle of men to safely rely upon, if you understand my situation.”
“I totally understand.” Chase set his microcassette recorder on the coffee table between them. “I appreciate just how careful anyone must be to challenge a man like Préval. I’ve read some of the stories describing the atrocities his soldiers have committed. Opposing him is dangerous business.”
Chase crafted his words to present himself as a sympathetic ear to Moreau’s plan. Journalists are trained not to take sides, not to have a point of view, but to hold a mirror up to unfolding events and give a clear and accurate reflection of what is occurring. But Chase had discovered the gray area when it came to stroking someone he was interviewing, especially off camera. Not that DB6 had journalistic standards—they could just as easily jam a .45 revolver in the left ear of an uncooperative politician—but Chase was in character and following the plan.
As Moreau’s cameraman returned with a fresh tape, a servant—who had to be at least a hundred years old—ambled into the room with two tall glasses of warm ice tea on a shaking sterling platter. She settled the glasses on cloth coasters in front of them, splashing a few drops under the glare of her boss and the bright, cold video light. The woman was a black skeleton under a plain blue dress. Bare-footed, she wore a brightly colored silk scarf over her sparse gray hair. She never looked up from the floor, flinching ever so slightly at each of Moreau’s movements, like a dog with a long history of unjust beatings.
After she pattered away, Moreau leaned forward, stressing the buttons and material of the tight-fitting, light yellow dress shirt he wore un-tucked in the fashion of the tropics. Sweat had made his matching, thin cotton pants see-through in spots. Replacing his glass on the coaster, he got down to business.
“I need you to deliver a message to the world, my friend. I contacted your bosses at the venerable Associated Press in New York City for an exclusive announcement that will change the course of history for my country. It will open wonderful new opportunities between America and the humble people of this great nation.”
“We were very grateful.” Chase wasn’t lying. He happened to know Moreau had also contacted Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, and at least ten other news organizations for this exclusive, for which he was told to submit a press release containing no more than five-hundred words. If he could attach a small headshot, that’d be great, too. As for the broadcast media he’d contacted, CNN and ABC had referred him back to the local Haitian stations, claiming any such breaking news would begin with a live local feed.
In other words, Moreau had been discounted by the world press. Shrugged off as some non-lethal threat, just one more wealthy farmer wanting to use airtime and news holes to announce he was about to take over the Haitian government. His current rise to power had been too peaceful thus far for the likes of Time Magazine. If he wanted attention, he needed to start with a gun battle or two. He lacked a good news hook, to this point.
DB6 and the CIA recognized the threat.
Another element dragging down his newsworthiness was his caveat of not releasing the story until “all the final touches were in place.” Nobody told the press when and how they were going to release news. But his unusual conditions seemed to have piqued the interest of Chase’s bosses at DB6. It added credibility to his threat that he was getting properly bankrolled for a sufficient number of soldiers-for-hire from the proceeds of the recent pot shipments. These guns for hire would be ready to storm the National Palace just as his message was being released by international news outlets.
This wasn’t a bad idea, Chase knew. More than a few times, various Haitian rebels had toppled the government, only to have the power grid blown up. By the time the television and radio stations were back on the air, the deposed leader had regrouped enough loyal soldiers to retake the National Palace. Without at least one working radio station to deliver the great news, nobody had come to rally in the streets behind the rebel leader and join the cause, so it was as if nothing significant had occurred. Just another Wednesday evening gun battle to make the coffin-makers work overtime.
Moreau was banking on the neighboring Dominican radio stations to relay news of the siege. The overthrow of an evil dictatorship broadcast to the battery-powered transistor radios in Haitian shops and coffee houses around the capitol and surrounding towns. The shaky part of his plan, which Chase did not point out to him, was that ninety-nine percent of Dominican radio stations broadcast in Spanish, which might as well be Martian to almost one-hundred percent of the Creole-speaking Haitians he wanted to reach.
“My message is that the corrupt and godless Préval government is being overthrown by the starving and deserved masses. The righteous people of the great nation of Haiti are rising up from the ashes of their murdered forefathers to seize power over the oppressors.” Moreau paused for a quick breath and to wipe his brow with a small handkerchief pulled from his back pocket. “The brave sons and daughters of Haiti are on the doorstep of Mr. Préval at this very moment, and they have chosen me, Jean Luc Moreau, to stand up and represent their needs and wishes. I am a servant to the will of our people.”
Acting the role of dedicated reporter, Chase fretted to keep up, scribbling line after line in his reporter’s notebook, as Moreau shifted into high gear in this speech he’d evidently practiced quite a bit. His oddly accented voice echoed in the sparsely furnished room. The couch on which Chase sat, along with two reclining chairs and a long coffee table, were the only pieces, except for a pair of tall, freestanding lamps. Above the brightly tiled fireplace was a huge portrait of a Spanish Andalusian horse, head cocked toward the artist and its right foreleg bent in stride. Chase knew the type of horse because a large silver plaque attached to the frame named it “Majestic Spanish Andalusian Horse”.
Chase’s attention returned to Moreau, who hadn’t broken stride, when the reporter started to notice something familiar about this speech.
“We refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation,” Moreau, the zombie-making pot farmer intoned earnestly, and Chase recognized bits of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. “And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.”
Chase continued with his furious notes, even as Moreau paused for a long swig of tea. Chase also began to recognize hints of a Brooklyn accent. He was sure he’d heard “we’ve come ta cash dis check,” among other tiny clues. Chase was suddenly a lot more interested in this crazy man he was about to kill.
Setting the empty glass on the coffee table, Moreau rose. He cleared his throat to continue, but his cameraman stepped on the extension cord powering the camera while trying to keep his boss in frame. The man nearly toppled the tripod and did manage to momentarily extinguish the video light.
“Sorry, boss,” he whimpered, fumbling and prodding until finally fitting the plug back into the underside of the camera. Light returned and Moreau took a deep breath.
“Duty, honor, country: those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be,” Moreau said, eloquently plagiarizing U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, despite pronouncing the last part “wut yooz will be.”
“They are your rallying points: to build courage when c
ourage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.”
Finally Moreau was silent, shaking his head wistfully, dramatically, coming—Chase hoped—to a conclusion. His hand had begun to cramp and he really needed to take a leak.
“I ask my brudders and sisters to entrust in me their faith as their new leader in this hour of turmoil. Faith must be enforced by reason. When faith becomes blind it dies.” Moreau clasped his dainty hands in front of his chin and closed his eyes tightly. “But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, his greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle—victorious.”
Mahatma Gandhi, Vince Lombardi, and Jean Luc Moreau all rolled into one.
Moreau opened his eyes slowly, head nodding in a satisfied manner. He waited for applause, or maybe for Chase to dab his eyes, perhaps forgetting for a moment that he was just a journalist with pen and pad. Picking up the cue, Moreau’s cameraman did start clapping, but Chase continued his scribbling.
He finished jotting the last line and closed his notebook.
“We done now, boss?” Moreau’s cameraman asked from over the reporter’s shoulder.
“Oui! I believe my message is clear like a bell. Make a copy for our guest to take with him.”
“That would be fantastic.” Chase packed away his notebook and recorder. “May I use your bathroom?”
Instead of answering, Moreau barked for one of his workers in some other room to fetch his driving gloves. His cameraman had begun the intricate task of unscrewing the camera from the tripod.
“Come, time for a tour of my humble ranch.” He pulled on velvety kid-leather gloves brought to him by the man who’d driven Chase to the ranch. “You need pictures of me and I have a wonderful spot which will be perfect. It will be a photo of me with fanmi mwen, my family.”